


19 months

by GingerLocks



Series: Shieldshock Oneshots [5]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (There is no stopping the steamroller of explicit language from the modern lady in distress), All she wanted was some freaking pasties for breakfast, Explicit Language, F/M, Friendship, She didn't ask for this BS!, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8578411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerLocks/pseuds/GingerLocks
Summary: All Darcy wanted was to get her husband some freaking pastries for their anniversary. Honestly, was going to the bakery without being kidnapped by HYDRA too much to ask?  In a desperate attempt to save both herself and her friend, Darcy messes with a thingamajig and accidentally bends time and space...





	1. Fuck HYDRA... with a cactus.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy NaNoWriMo!  
> This month is killing me, but hey, as of 6 hours ago I was only 40 words away from the 1666 words a day target!
> 
> I have been working on chapters for my other two fics, but since it's nano I have basically just been chasing any and every plot-bunny there is. For those of you who are anxious for the next chapter of Operation Plums, do not fret, my beta is on it! As for the 365 fic, it still has a lot of polishing to go through before I can even think about posting that!
> 
> Anyway, this was a plot-bunny/27 word prompt I found in my old docs, and I kinda ran with it at full speed. Chapter 2 will be up sometime tomorrow!!

«Shit. Shit, shit,» Darcy Lewis chanted as she frantically tried to stop the blood coming out of the ex-assassin’s right shoulder.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She continued with, when said ex-assassin’s iron grip started to loosen as he lost consciousness.

And then she ended her five minute long chant of those two words with a string of creative, innovative (and intergalactic) curse words that came to a crescendo at a frustrated sob and a final; “Fuck you HYDRA!”

Now that her anger had been (temporarily) dealt with, and the wounded ex-assassin seen to as good as her limited resources allowed, she took a minute to assess the situation.

Three days ago, she’d been kidnapped.

All she’d wanted to do was to surprise her husband for their 19 months anniversary! (The fact that nobody celebrated 19 months of marriage was a good enough cover in her opinion. He’d never expect it!) She had left her sleeping husband to get him those pastries he loved so much… okay the pastries  _ they _ loved so much, she really craved the sugary delicious pastries too, so sue her.

On the way home with two full bags of pastries (her husband ate both a lot, and all the time) she had met her neighbour Carl... or was his name Cal?

Carl/Cal had offered to help her with her bags, and before she could neither accept nor decline his offer, he had plunged a syringe in her neck. She didn’t have time to get her Taser out, or press her panic button, before the world went black. The last thing she saw was a pain-au-chocolat lying next to her on the pavement.

48 hours ago, she had woken up without being immediately re-drugged and kept in a crappy little cell with only a rubber mattress and a bucket. And the Neo-nazi-sea-monsters had started to question her about her husband and his weaknesses.

_ Seriously, what were they even trying to find?! _

“ _ Yeah, so, he is like, really, like allergic to peanuts. One Reese’s Piece and he’s as good as a dead man.” _

_ As if. _

And she might be a level 7 SHIELD agent, but that was only because of circumstances and the fact that she simply just knew too much. She’d only barely passed (read: struggled through) the basic 5 week safety training course. And it wasn’t as if she really worked with the level 7 stuff! Sure, Maria Hill, the acting director of the remnants of SHIELD, sometimes gave her files to file and information to sort when assignments were completed. She was a glorified part time secretary, just because she was the only one with a clearance high enough to actually do the filing.   

Point is, just because she was a level 7, didn’t mean she could actually tell them anything about active missions, nor did she possess the skills to get her ass out the situation. 

So she had almost cried with relief when, less than half an hour ago, James fucking Barnes had stormed the HYDRA base. Guns blazing, throwing her over his shoulder while he grumbled just how pissed Steve was, before he had put her on a snowmobile and driven off into this cold, white hell as the base exploded in the distance.

“That was awesome!” she shouted, through chattering teeth, squeezing him a bit harder as she held on for dear life (and warmth) He’d grunted in pain and repositioned her arm away from his shoulder to around his waist, her arm felt tacky and she realised he’d been hit and was bleeding from his shoulder.

They had driven like bats out of hell for about about fifteen minutes when she noticed exactly how much blood he was losing and how cold she was. The adrenaline having clouded her brain and confused the shit out of her body until they finally put some distance between them and the smoky remains.

Honestly she should have noticed both of these things sooner, as she had been curled on his lap, using his left arm as protection from bullets and his right arm as protection from the cold.

It wasn’t long before he stopped, dropped his arms from around her and leaned off the snowmobile and into the snøhaug next to them.

That’s when her cursing had begun. She’d wrapped herself up in her cardigan as best she could and clumsily tried to tend to the bleeding, tearing what was left of his henley on his left arm and folded it up to make a makeshift press for his bullet wounds. Because as far as she could see, he’d been shot three times in that same shoulder, and only one of them was a through-and-through.

She returned to the snowmobile and opened the storage compartment, thanking her lucky stars that she found two thermal jackets, zipping one on immediately, before struggling to get the other on James.

Because, yes, her husband might be mad at her for getting herself kidnapped, but he would be furious if his best friend got himself killed.

Once she had turned on the heating systems in both jackets, she checked out the rest of the contents in the bag.

“Shit,” she breathed as she realised just how bad things really were.

She was sitting in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, endless snow as far as her eyes could see, a barely functioning snowmobile with shot up communications system, two power-bars and a device that she had helped Jane and Stark with for long enough to realise just how unhelpful it was.

Her only chance of survival was a guy who was barely concious, and bleeding out, and he was not the type of guy who called for back-up, meaning no one would come to, well, back them up.

“Shit, balls and fucking daisy petals.” She muttered again as she stared at the device.

The wind howled and she was at a loss as to what she could do.

“Do you have a phone, James?” she asked the unconscious man beside her. He didn’t answer.

“Thought as much, you never-“ but before she could finish that sentence, however, the wind carried the noise of engines over to her. She turned, hoping desperately that it was Steve there, on his motorbike, coming to save her in his full Captain America Glory™ . But no, it was not her husband. It wasn’t even Tony in his suit or Clint on a snowmobile.

“Fuck HYDRA,” she said with passion as she saw what little remained of the HYDRA base coming towards them in the distance, "with a cactus!"

She thought about dragging James off and hide, but a) she was not strong enough to do that, and b) there was not really anywhere to hide.

So she did the only thing she could do. She fiddled with the device in her hand, trying to remember everything about it, how to turn it into a weapon or maybe even send out a bat-signal to all the Avengers.

She immediately realised there was not enough power in there to do anything remotely like she wanted to do, so she sent James a silent apology as she stripped his left arm out of his jacket, and opened one of the panels on his metal wrist, pushing his henley away from the open hole and trying to remember what she'd learned and stay calm.

Honestly, when Steve had asked her be in the lab as James’ support when Tony was upgrading his arm, she never knew it would be this useful.

She made quick work out of finding and unhooking the power source, the tiny ark reactor with Tony’s element in it, and hooked it up to her device, quickly plotting in exactly what she wanted on the screen.

_Steve_. 

She wanted Steve. Steve and a hot shower... preferably a hot shower _with_ Steve.

So she typed in 'Steve Rogers', and to be on the safe side, 'Captain America', and almost cried in relief as she found him on the database.

“This is it, James, here goes our last chance.” She said as she gripped James’ flesh hand and pressed the ‘SAFE’-button. Keeping her eyes on the ever closing HYDRA agents as the devise made a strange high pitched sound and then the world around her turned white and she felt a sick twisting in her gut.

And in the next moment the white light started fading slightly, but as she emptied the small amount of food she had gotten the last day onto the pristine snow beside her, she realised that it was daytime, and the sun shone brilliantly on the white snow. A huge contrast to the landscape lit up by moonlight.

Darcy, momentarily blinded and blinking furiously, looked all around her and quickly recognised that a lot of things were missing.

Obviously, the first thing was the nighttime, the second was their snowmobile and the third was the HYDRA agents hunting them.

“The fuck...?"

She glanced at the device in her hand, frowning as the monitor showed; ' _You have now successfully been transported to Safety.'_

“No. We have not,” Darcy stated the obvious to the device. “We haven’t moved at all, you stupid little-“ but as she was about to go on a full scale smack-down on the inanimate object, she heard engines in the distance… again.

She looked up and saw a plane coming towards them. It was a low flying, vintage plane and obviously this was not a HYDRA plane, they would be coming in a Quinjet, not in a shiny 40’s plane that looked well-kept enough to belong to a plane enthusiast. She vaguely remember seeing this plane in the background of a picture where Tony posed on his '32 Ford Flathead Roadster. The picture hung in his office, she'd seen it many a time.  Suddenly she felt a tiny bubble of hope, despite the fact that Tony would definitely be using his Iron Man suit on a rescue mission.

Thinking fast, she glanced at James, still unconscious and therefore not available to discuss her options with, and unzipped her jacket, uncovering her bright red cardigan and jumped up and down, waving like mad to get the plane’s attention.

“HEEEELP, OVER HERE! HELP!” And it looked like they had spotted her, because they started flying lower and, thank fuck, started to land on the flat ice behind her.

“Please do not kill me if this goes south.” She begged as she put the jacket back on and unhooked James from the traitorous-and-unhelpful device to zip him back up too.

She checked his wounds while she was at it, relieved to find them healing. He might not heal as quickly as Steve, but at least it was quicker than her. The two bullets still lodged in him were now visible and slowly slugging their way out.

She glanced up at the men running from the plane towards them and started lightly slapping James in the face.

“Wake, the fuck, up, shit, please. I have no way of defending you if they are less than friendly!”

Her slaps were not even close to effective. Especially with his stupid mask and goggles in the way. She couldn’t very well wake him up by flicking his forehead!

She frowned and glanced back to men, then sent a silent prayer up to whatever God was listening, as long as it wasn’t a Loki type of God, that these men were not HYDRA, and then she started flicking James’ forehead.

“Why did you have Tony make you a mask that is impossible to open without consent?” she asked him furiously as the flicking intensified.

James groaned.

“Thank fuck. James. I need you to be alert, Let me do the talking, but run if I tell you to, okay?”

She wished she could see his eyes through the goggles, but after a second where she feared he might have fainted again, he nodded once and she got him into a sitting position as they waited for the men to reach them. Bucky winced, one of the bullets falling out of his shoulder, and Darcy smiled apologetically to him before she dug out the other, reapplied the pressure and re-zipped his jacket. She was actually glad she couldn’t see his eyes now.

“Who’s there?!” One man said, his voice vaguely familiar and filled with false bravado. They had stopped a few yards away, just far enough back that they could still hear each other.

“Ditto!” she shouted back, then silently cursed herself as James stiffened next to her.

“I mean,” she frantically started to back-paddle, “like, are you guys HYDRA? Because I would appreciate a heads up before I start running.” Bucky sighed in defeat, she shrugged.

The three men fell silent and looked at each other before the man who spoke first tentatively answered her.

“We.. No. We’re not HYDRA?” He said, sounding confused.

“Are you sure?” Darcy asked him.

“Yes?”

“Well, you didn’t sound sure, is all.” She shrugged. She then stared at the men for a minute. They were wearing clothes that looked vintage, like Steve’s leather jacket, or the pictures of James from back when he was Bucky. They really went all out with their vintage airplane rides… unless…

Dread pooled in Darcy’s stomach as she realized why the man’s voice sounded so familiar.

“Well, fuck me fat and call me pregnant!” She exclaimed and pointed at him. The two other men looked taken aback by her sudden outburst, but the man smirked slightly at her. 

"I assure you I use protection."

She waved off his flirty remark, "I just meant, holy shit, you’re Howard Stark, right? Am I right?” He barely got the chance to nod before she turned to James. “What the hell, James. Howard fucking Stark! The fuck?!” And then she turned back to Howard fucking Stark.  
  


Howard and his men started getting frustrated by her maniac screaming, and she could hear just how unnaturally shrill her voice was, but she was unable to control herself as she cursed some more.

It wasn’t until James reached up a hand to tug on her sleeve that she realized she’d better shut up.  
  


Well, she couldn’t. She physically could not. This was her breaking down, it had been a hard 72 hours and her cup was overflowing. And it was getting hard to breathe, talking, cursing really, was the only way to force air in and out of her lungs right now.

“James, we’ve time travelled.” She whispered faintly, before she felt her knees give out.

James hummed in agreement, ignoring her wince when her knees hit the ice.   
  
  


*

 

The next hour and a half were all a huge McFlurry of motions and/or emotions. Howard (Fucking!) Stark and his two little helpers had cuffed them and marched them to their plane. She faintly registered Stark compliment James’ prosthetic before he chained his flesh hand to her left. And sure enough, upon glancing at his left hand poking out of the jacket, she saw that the fingers had frozen, appearing like any other immobile prosthetic… only killer metal. Smart, she knew the limb could be cryofrozen without actually freezing, so James did it on purpose. Having a metal arm ages before its time, even in 2018 (unless you were a mad HYDRA scientist... or Tony Stark) was probably not a great thing if you travel back in time.

They plane ride was the most uncomfortable she had ever endured, and she used to fly commercial. Maybe it was because all the adrenaline from their rescue was wearing off, or she finally realised just how cold her legs were in the wet jeans and converse low tops.  
  


“We’ll get through this.” She heard James whisper to her through his mask in Russian. She wasn’t very good at the language, but Natasha had been grilling her in it since before she even met Steve, and when Bucky moved in with them in their old apartment in Brooklyn, she had actually gone out of her way to get Natasha and Barton both to teach it to her.

Natasha was her favourite teacher when it came to Russian, Barton could barely speak it himself and just confused her, but she enjoyed her self-defence classes more when Barton was the teacher, because, as she had told Steve: “Nat is downright terrifying, and with Barton I have a tiny chance of getting away whenever he does one of those Human Errors. And you know what, Steve? Natasha is above them.”  
  


Still, she could only guess, because James could also have said “We can do this,” but it was reassuring either way.

“Where are they taking us?” she whispered back, thankful for the stupid ventriloquist classes she had taken in High School to make her mom stop her from doing the god-awful beauty-pageants.

“SSR.”

Darcy shot him a quick look and moved her fingers an inch to the left, to wrap around the fingers of his right hand.

“Shit.”

  
  
  



	2. Back to the future

Darcy Rogers (nee Lewis) had met Peggy Carter many times in her life. She’d met her as Steve’s best friend, supporting him as he met his old love for the first time in decades and accompanying him on a few visits after that, holding his hand whenever Peggy's mind was somewhere else. She’d met her as Steve’s girlfriend a few months later, rolling her eyes at Peggy’s “I told you so.” She had also met her as Steve’s fiancé, when they’d invited her to the wedding. And after she became Steve’s wife, they’d had her, her niece Sharon and Sharon’s boyfriend (also Steve’s best friend) Sam over for thanksgiving.

She had also been to Peggy’s funeral. She’s held Steve as he cried, she’d cooked for the newly recovered James as the Bucky side of him mourned her loss. She’d helped Sharon go through her things when Sharon decided to sell her old house.

But every time she had met Peggy Carter in the past, the woman had been old and wrinkly, with fine white hair and Alzheimer’s, often making her twitchy by looking at her strangely, her mind in the past, not knowing Darcy at all.

This time, however, it was Darcy herself that was in the past, and Peggy’s skin was as smooth as her own, and she had just so much colour! Her cheeks, her lips, her hair,  and it made Darcy a little afraid to look away, or even blink, in case she withered before her eyes.

James must have felt the same thing, stronger than she ever could, remembering Peggy from before his fall. The moment she had entered the room, after agent Sousa had looked at the two way mirror behind him, James had perked up and his eyes hadn’t left her since. Well, Darcy guessed, seeing as he was still wearing his only-I-can-remove-this-by-myself-mask and goggles.

“Mr. Stark has told us that you were quite chatty when he picked you up, but after you left the arctic circle, you haven’t said a word. Now, why is that?” Peggy asked, quirking a brow at them.

Darcy looked over at James and back at Peggy.

“Well, to be honest, I was freaking the fuck out-“ She paused and cringed when the curses left her lips, much to James’ amusement, as he shifted next to her. She sent a small silent prayer to both Heimdal and Thor to save her, but as she had been praying to Heimdal since she was kidnapped some days ago… and decades into the future, she knew they were of little help now. Also, what if Heimdal actually heard her prayers, how weird would it be to hear someone requesting her friend Thor’s help over half a century before she actually met and befriended the prince?

“Sorry, I don’t mean to swear so much, I’ve had a rough couple of days…” She dragged the sleeve covering her right arm up with the hand bound to James and the table, displaying the purple bruises, shaped like hands and circling her lower arm along with the red, angry, rope burns. “Courtesy of HYDRA,” she smiled without humour, ignoring James’ hissing to gauge the reaction of the three other people in the room.

Sousa stayed as neutral as possible, but she could see the hint of anger. He clearly had the same hero instincts as Steve. Peggy simply raised her other eyebrow as she assessed the arm, and the handsome-and-knows-it blond agent, that so far had been a bit of a dick, but was also clearly in charge (as if to remind Darcy that they really were in the 1940’s, long live the patriarchy...) shifted his position against the mirror.

She knew he was there to extract information when the agents were tired of asking nicely, HYDRA had their own Menacing Man™ when they’d had her, except they used him as a plan D in case plan A (asking nicely), plan B (chemically drug and ask her nicely), and plan C (She’d rather not know), didn’t work out.

“As you can see, Agent blond-boss,” she directed at him, “I don’t crack under pressure. And neither does he.”

James nodded next to her.

“So this is how you will get information from us,” She leaned forwards and directed her attention towards Peggy again.

“Peggy here is the only one who I will speak to. I will not do it in here, where you can listen in. It will only be Peggy, James and me. I do not care if you give us a janitor closet or the ladies room. I will speak to Peggy alone, and nobody else.”

“Not gonna happen.” Agent Blond-and-broody unsurprisingly protested.

“I think you will find that it very much will happen.” Darcy smiled back. “James here just busted me out of a secret HYDRA base without any backup or tech support. He might have have been injured, but I took the last bullet out, so he should be healed up in no time, plus he is no longer really right handed, so…” James lifted his metal hand and started waving his fingers at them.

“Yeah. He can break us out of here in what, 5 minutes?” she turned to James, who scoffed, “3 minutes then. And then the chance to talk to us will be over.” The blond agent drew his gun. Idiot.

“Fine,” Darcy sighed. “Peggy, your favourite lipstick brand is 102  SWEET DREAMS,  and Colonel Chester Phillips’ last words to Captain America were ‘I’m not kissing you’ after you just did. ” Peggy’s frown only lasted for a second before she gestured to agent Dumb-with-a-gun  and Sousa to talk in the hallway.

“You can’t be serious, Carter.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and James sighed. He had reached the same conclusion as Darcy; these three punks would use forever to agree to their terms. They didn’t take them seriously enough.

“Are there anyone behind the glass?” Darcy asked loudly and nodded to the mirror.

“One” James whispered in Russian.

“One?” Darcy asked the blond-with-a-gun in English. Actually she was tired of calling him that, “wait, dumb-blond-with-a-gun, who are you anyway?”

He spluttered indignantly for a second before Peggy discreetly rolled her eyes, “This is Chief Thomson. What he says goes.”

Darcy didn’t bother hiding her own eyeroll, “Jesus fucking Christ, James, that guy is never gonna believe we’re serious, do your thing.”

James let out a long suffering sigh and easily snapped off their cuffs in two smooth motions with his left hand. He then stood up and helped Darcy to her feet.

She heard a shot being fired, and the clank sound the bullet made as it hit James’ metal bicep and fell to the floor.

Thompson had aimed at her head, the fuck? James had his back to the agents as Peggy disarmed the man. He reached up with his right hand and lifted his goggles, pushing his hair back and meeting her gaze. And yeah, James and Steve were amazing together in the field. Barely speaking but communicating all the same, and James and Natasha were even better, obviously having had some missions together before she went rogue, never speaking but knowing everything the other wanted them to.

And she had to say that despite not fighting much, actually she only fought once and got knocked out after half a minute, with James, she could easily understand everything he was trying to convey.

Something about being the only person around him while he recovered, the only one who wasn’t a walking emotional trigger that is, just made such a strong bond between them that she could easily call him her brother. And he was, in all but blood.

Peggy berated Thompson for his rash trigger-finger and Darcy glanced over James’ shoulder at her. The question clear to him.  _ You trust her? _

James didn’t even have to nod for her to know that, yeah he trusted Peggy, and anyone Peggy trusted, he would learn to trust too.

Darcy stepped around James, squeezing his right hand in assurance.

“Sousa, Peggy and Dumbson.” They all went quiet and turned towards her. Thompson even ignored her jibe at him.

“Tell whoever is behind that glass to leave and turn off all recording equipment, and we will tell you whatever we can.”

Thompson sighed and nodded towards the glass.

“Did he follow my terms?” Darcy asked James, to which the supersoldier listened and after hearing whatever signal he needed, he nodded.

“Good, then I guess it’s about time to introduce ourselves, come sit James, say hi to Peggy.”

James moved slowly as he retook his seat and Darcy hers, and after a minute, he used the thumbs canner to unlock his mask, uncovering the bottom half of his face.

“Good Lord!” Peggy exclaimed, shakily sitting down in the seat next to Sousa, opposite James, and covered her mouth.

“B-Bucky?” she said faintly as she reached out a hesitant hand, as if she wanted to touch his face, make sure it was real. “is it really you?”

James did the classic Bucky smirk, “Yes, ma’am.” Then his eyes turned sad again “well, almost.” Darcy reached out a hand in comfort.

“And you got married?!” Peggy blinked, gesturing to Darcy’s hand laying on top of his, wedding band on full display. Shit, this might break Peggy’s heart.

James laughed. “oh no, she’s not my gal. She’s Steve’s.”

Darcy froze, staring at Peggy, who also froze. Sousa cleared his throat uncomfortably and Dumbson broke the silence. “Who the hell is Bucky? And this Steve fellah?”

Peggy cleared her throat too and blinked away the tears and hope in her eyes. Oh. Darcy’s heart ached for her.

“This is Sergeant James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, part of the Howling Commandos and only one of them to give his life in the war. Well, until now I believed he was killed in action when he and Captain America captured Dr. Zola on a train in the alps 1945. Steve, I believe, is Steven Grant Rogers, also known as Captain America, who went MIA in the Atlantic just days later.”

Peggy kept her voice steady, but Darcy could see the McFlurry of emotions in her eyes.

“Where is Zola?” James asked. Ferocious and scary in a way that only the Winter Soldier could be, and because he let that side of him slip out, he said it in Russian. Lucky, she guessed.

The Agents leaned back and Darcy caught James’ chin in her hand, turning his face towards her. “Hey, James, it’s Darcy. You are safe. Zola is not here. You can’t do this. Not now. I need you here with me.” She hated it when James relapsed. It happened fairly regularly the first few months before he moved in with them, and the aftermath was always horrible to watch.

The Winter Soldier blinked and James stared at her, nodding once and she dropped her hand.

“Yeah, Peggy’s right. Bucky fell, and he nearly died, but Dr. Z had pumped Bucky full of some serum thing before you and Howard sent Steve in to save him and the one oh seven. He survived the fall, got a brand new arm and was brainwashed for decades by HYDRA. It’s not a pleasant story, and Steve just got him back from those squid-fuckers so let’s not lose him today, alright?”

Peggy looked much older as she sighed and leaned her elbows on the table, absorbing the information. Dumbson moved away from the door and pulled up a chair next to her, folded his arms and looked thoughtful, while Sousa merely closed the folders on the table.

“How long did HYDRA have you?” Peggy asked after collecting herself. Bucky ran a hand through his hair and frowned. “What year is it?”

Dumbson narrowed his eyes “it’s 1947.” He frowned, probably thinking they were stupid.

“Then I have been with HYDRA for two years. “ He said, and shrugged.

Peggy narrowed her eyes, took in his long hair, Darcy's strange, colourful attire and his metal fingers.

“What year did you come from?” she asked.

“Seriously, Carter?” Chief Dumbson scoffed next to her.

“2018,” Darcy said, thinking five minutes without hearing her own voice was four minutes too many.

“Yeah, right,” Dumbson scoffed again. “Do you two seriously believe this?” he asked his two agents. Sousa shrugged and Peggy pretended not to hear him.

“You came 71 years into the past? Why?” she looked confused.

“Good question, I mean the misogyny here is horrible, not that it’s too great in the future, you should see the Cheeto we have for president, but at least it is normal for women to get a job and wear pants… Anyway, it’s not as if we _meant_ to come here. The device-thing went all,” she gestured a big explosion with her hands,” and bright and then there was a plane and Mr. Stark was on it, probably looking for Steve there- oh!”

She turned to James. “I think I get what happened? Where was Steve when you rescued me?”

“With Thor, to ask Heimdal where you were. And probably fight Odin if he forbade any more interference.”

“Ah, shit, alright.” She looked back at Peggy. “You got my stuff?”

Peggy nodded and after a staring contest with Dumbson, he walked out to get it. “We had to forcibly take it away from Stark, he was fascinated by it.”

“Oh I bet he was. His son helped designed it.” Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah, Tony is just as smart, if not smarter than his father.” James nodded as Darcy rambled on again. “He drives Steve insane, they even had a big showdown two years ago… er, 2016, that got resolved though, thankfully.”

Darcy bit her lips to stop the word flow coming out, but shutting up had never been her strong suit.

“You were there. During that showdown. You called it a silly Civil War and told Steve to grow up. Then you made me make Tony visit you and told him to grow up too.” Darcy smiled faintly. “I’m pretty sure you helped diffuse the situation before Tony went all Iron Man on Cap’s ass.” She blinked away the sudden tears. “That was the last time I saw you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Peggy asked.

“You had Alzheimers, sometimes when Steve came to visit you, you’d have great conversations about your lives, and then you would blink and ask him if it was really him, totally forgetting that he visited you every Tuesday.”

Peggy was having a hard time digesting this, Darcy could tell, so she gave her more.

“The last time I saw you, you thought it was 1925 or something, you kept telling me that you were sorry for breaking the window, and not to tell your dad. Sharon said you didn’t remember her until your last day.”

“Sharon?”

“Oh, yeah, shit, Sharon is your niece. She is an agent, like you, she was actually posted to keep track of Steve after he defrosted, that’s how I got to know her. I hung out at Steve’s place a lot, he had a great home entertainment system. Huge flatscreen, HD quality, surround sound, Netflix, Viaplay, _and_ HBO subscription. It was heaven. I was doing an internship in DC and my room was tiny!”

James cleared his throat. “You’re right James, I’m getting off topic, sorry.”

Sousa scrunched up his face, “Netflix?”

“Great thing in the future. TV shows and movies stored online, just click what you want and you can watch it whenever.” He still looked confused. Oh well.

She was just about to go in-depth about the advances In technology and entertainment when Dumbson returned, thank Thor.

He threw the box on the table and Darcy pulled out the jackets, looking for the stupid device-thing.

“Aha!”

“What is it?” Dumbson asked.

“To be honest, I don’t really know?” Darcy sighed. “My boss-Lady, Jane, She is a brilliant astrophysicist, really does some extraordinary work with space travel and wormholes. Anyway. She has successfully built this Einstein-Rosen bridge which is basically a teleportation thing that can travel across dimensions. She made contact with Åsgard. Well, she hit Thor with her car, twice… then I tased him-“ James rolled his eyes, thanks James, she got the point. “Not important. She just thought of a way to travel to Thor when he was off-planet, so she figured out a way for emergency teleportation, basically. Oh, yeah aliens are real, bee tee dubs. Anyway she was stuck on the design and it was getting too intricate for me to help her, so then Tony helped.”

She turned on the device and saw that it was getting no signal whatsoever. The faint dot that they’d been transported to was gone.

“We were trying to get away from these HYDRA agents chasing us, when our snowmobile broke down and James was passed out from the bullet wounds.” She distracted herself and turned to him, “how’s that going by the way?”

“It’s healed.”

“Good. I’m not the best medic, but I’ve stitched Steve up enough times to know how to get by.”

“You did well.”

“Good, thanks, you’re welcome… Oh! I was telling you a thing!” She refocused on the gadget, “where was I?”

“Getting away from HYDRA...” Thompson answered, impatient.

“Right, so I just really wanted to be with Steve, so I logged in and chose him from the list of Avengers I had access to. But there was not nearly enough power so I hooked it up to James’ arm and that new element the Stark found is really powerful, juiced this up far more than I needed, to get a simple signal, so here we are.”

She frowned at the thing.

“It was supposed to bring us to Steve. I guess it looked for the nearest Steve and decided it was easier to travel 71 years back in time than into Åsgard’s throneroom or wherever Steve was... Fuck!”

“What?” Sousa asked.

“Nothing, it’s just that this means that Steve was probably alive in the ice for two years before he temporarily died.”

And Darcy’s heart ached again for Steve.

“When did he get out?” Peggy asked after a moment.

“2012, Howard never stopped looking, even after his death he had teams out looking every summer. They found him in the end.”

Peggy grimaced. “I was a 90 year old spinster with memory loss and he was, what, a 26 year old man when he visited me?”

Darcy smiled kindly at her. “Yeah, except your hair still looked amazing and you weren’t a spinster. You got married and had a great family, no kids though, but your nieces and nephews loved you fiercely. Your funeral was attended by so many, especially considering that you were one of the last to go."

She regarded the Agents. Peggy was on the fence, both wanting to believe her and not wanting to. It was understandable; Darcy knew more about her than she did after all. Sousa looked like he believed everything she was saying, bless him, and Dumbson even looked like he might not throw them in the loony bin. Actually he looked like he'd still throw her in the loony bin and James into a dark hole and throw away the keys to both.

Her stomach growled as the left over adrenaline from the last few days ebbed away. “Shit, I haven’t eaten a proper meal since dinner the day before I was kidnapped. Damn me for not sneaking the pastries I got Steve for our 19 months anniversary!” She rubbed her stomach, “Dude, you don’t happen to have a sandwich or like a steak dinner or someth-“ the device-thing beeped.

She grabbed it and stared at the flicking on the screen. It was registering two units within reach, but due to the lack of satellites, it was having a hard time pinpointing where.

“Stupid, fucking, 1947.” She mumbled and knocked the device on the table, like Jane was want to do with her homemade science gadgets.

Then James perked up, and looked at her, a few seconds later she heard it too.

“Take cover!” she shouted at the agents and dove under the table.

The door, the doorframe and parts of the wall blasted in and she peeked over the table to see the most welcoming sight she’d ever seen.

“Man of Iron!” she shouted, and jumped up, dragging James with her as Dumbson dusted himself off. Peggy had pushed Sousa away before Tony blasted the door.

“She’s here, Cap.” Tony said in his robot voice and the face plate lifted up for her to see his face smiling at her.

“Hey, kid. Cyborg.” He nodded to James. “Aunt Peggy.” He smiled at Peggy. “Tony, I presume?” Peggy answered, looking like nothing could ever phase her again.

“Right in one.” Tony smirked, then Steve was in the door hole, dressed in all his Captain America glory.

“Darce?” he asked, and she barely had time to nod before he had lifted her up and hugged her like his life depended on it. “James?” he asked into her hair.

“Yeah, Sweetie, he rescued me, he’s fine.”

“I am.” James confirmed and patted Steve’s shoulder.

Steve set her down on the ground again and did a once-over, frowning at her cuts and scrapes and bruises, not to mention the dark circles under her eyes.

“Steve?” Peggy asked, weakly beside them.

“Peggy,” he smiled back, and without hesitation, he gathered Peggy up in his arms too, like he just had with Darcy, and when he set her down, he kissed her cheek.

“It’s great to see you again.”

“And you too, Steve.” She smiled, and if it weren’t for the fact that Steve was Darcy’s and she was his and they had matching gold bands to prove it, Darcy would have totally chanted “kiss, kiss, kiss.”

But Steve was her husband, and she missed him terribly, and HYDRA had made her miss their 19 months anniversary, and almost his 100th birthday too! And since she was pretty sure they would never live to see his 200th (what, with the lives they were living and the amount of junk food they both put away? She’d be lucky to make it to 90) she didn’t hesitate to reach out for his hand.

“Not that I’m not all for happy reunions, I am, really, but we have to wrap this up to minimize the damage we’re causing to the timeline.” Tony interrupted as Darcy pulled Steve into a hug again.

“Fuck off, Tony.” Steve mumbled as he leant down to give her a kiss, scooping her up in his arms the way he did at their wedding.

And it was a good kiss, not their best, but by God, she thought kissing Steve was something she was never going to get to do again. It was sweet and so  _ them _ that Darcy forgot that this might just break Peggy’s heart a little more each second.

Sousa cleared his throat and Steve regretfully lowered her back down to the ground, mouthing “later,” to her before he straightened up again.

It was embarrassing how breathless she was, but she could not bring herself to care.

“So, Captain Rogers.” Dumbson spoke in the awkward silence that followed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Care to tell us exactly what’s going on?”

Steve frowned and was just about to get real sassy on Dumbson’s ass when Tony interrupted.

“We are getting the kid and the cyborg and going back to the future.” He said as if this was the sort of situation he found himself in all the time. Which he probably did, Darcy worked for Pepper, and like her boss she was good at pretending Tony didn’t exist when she was at work, so there was no telling what Tony did with his time.

“You can’t leave until we have questioned you and cleared you to go.” Dumbson sounded cross. And he was using all his authority and intimidation tactics, too bad for him he was trying to use it on two super-soldiers, a man in a metal and highly armoured suit that did not deal well with authority and the girl dealing with intimidating superheroes on a daily basis.

“You’re cute.” Darcy smiled at him, angering him further as Tony smiled, “but we better be going.”

“Yeah, I'll just need to Men in black you guys,” Tony nodded to Dumbson and Sousa, “then Heimdal is ready to zap us to Asgard and into the right century.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Thompson protested, as Steve handed out sunglasses to Peggy and Darcy, and Bucky pulled his goggles back on. He didn't get further because Tony Stark had built himself an honest to god memory eraser a-la Men in Black, and was flashing it three times in Thompson's face.

Dumbson fell over, and Peggy gasped, moving to remove her sunglasses, but Darcy stopped her as Tony turned to Sousa.

Unlike Dumbson, Sousa did not fall to the floor, because James reached out an arm to steady him, placing him head down on the table, as if in sleep, before snagging the file from underneath him and stuffing it inside his tac uniform jacket.

“I'll go fix the surveillance tapes and transcripts, Tony you go through the lab Howard is in, make sure you M-I-B him too, and trash his notes on the thingamajig, Stevie and James, you say your goodbyes, all right?” Darcy nodded to Peggy, before moving for the door, only pausing as she stepped over Dumbson, looking back over her shoulder at Steve, then back to Dumbson. Steve nodded, and she carefully made her way over the debris left of the door, wondering how Peggy was going to explain  _ that _ away.

She made quick work of erasing the tapes (good old magnets,) and stealing the right transcripts, before she hunted down the person who'd written the transcript, wanting to give her boys some privacy with their old friend and/or ex-lover.

She was joined by James a few minutes later, after she'd located the unconscious man next to his desk. “I think Tony flashed him before he broke the door.” James commented, and Darcy laughed at the uninvited image of Tony opening his suit just to flash a poor unsuspecting SSR agent.

“We'll carry him back to the interrogation room, maybe we can explain away the memory losses by some weird bomb going off outside the door, with a pulse that knocked all those in the area out.” James nodded and smirked, waving his hand over the man, twice her size, in an invitation to carry him herself. She laughed and patted him on the shoulder, “By 'we' I obviously meant 'you'.”

James laughed and picked the man up easily, throwing him over his shoulder and walking back the way they came.

Darcy arrived just in time to see Steve and Peggy release each other from a long hug, Peggy wiping tears from her eyes, and Steve smiling sadly at her.

“Thank you. For letting me have this, for letting me know you are going to be fine.” Peggy smiled weakly at him, then she turned to Darcy, “and thank you for making him happy.” She reached out a hand towards Darcy, who snorted, grabbed the hand and hauled the Agent into a big bear hug.

“My pleasure,” she shrugged, letting her go, before giving her a salute and leaving the room again.

“Goodbye, Peg.”

“Goodbye, Steve.”

And with that, the three of them made their way to the roof, where Heimdal was beaming them up, Star Trek style, to Åsgard.

“You okay?” Darcy pulled on Steve's hand, stopping him a few feet from the others, “this was a lot to deal with, I know.”

Steve wrapped his arms around her, “I'll be fine. It was nice having a few moments to say my proper goodbye, seeing her alive again. But it’s even better having you back. Jesus Darce, I was so scared when you were gone.”

“But you came for me, and now we're together again, like we always will be, dork. I'm fine. But the moment we get outta here I was a huge steak with all the sides and extras, then I want a long, hot shower with you, followed by a long hot bath and a five day nap.”

“I think that's called a coma,” Steve joked.

“Fuck it, fine, at least give me food, warmth and sex and let me sleep for a minimum of twelve hours.”

“Hm,” Steve pretended to think about it, Darcy rolled her eyes, “yes, I guess I can arrange that.”

“Of course you can.” Darcy leaned up on her tiptoes, giving him a proper kiss, this time without the tiny guilty feeling that Peggy was in the room, just happy to have her husband in her arms again. She'd gotten as far as getting her legs around his hips and her hand on the buckle of his top, when Tony hollered; “inter-dimensional travel now, necking like teenagers later.”

Steve sighed, breaking away from her and Darcy reluctantly slid down to her feet.

“Happy belated 19 months anniversary,” Steve mumbled into her hair, placing a last kiss there before he stepped away from her, holding her hand as they made their way over to the others. 

“Please let your 100th birthday next week be a thousand times better!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thats it. a silly little plot-bunny w/o any actual plot. Just a really complicated meeting-the-ex story where I got to go to town with silly commentary :) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> I'm [foreverdrunkatheart](http://www.foreverdrunkatheart.tumblr.com) on tumblr, don't be shy, come share silly headcanons with me :) 
> 
> you can find my other fics and fanarts [here!](http://www.hannahsfandos.tumblr.com) :)


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